


dodging bullets with your broken past

by enbyofdionysus



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe- No Supernatural, First Meetings, Fluff, M/M, Weddings, Zeus meets Percy at his son's wedding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 02:10:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17034483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enbyofdionysus/pseuds/enbyofdionysus
Summary: It was cliche, to say the least. But Jove couldn't be blamed for falling for the groomsman at his youngest son's wedding.





	dodging bullets with your broken past

It was an ironic kind of cliché.

To be fair, Jove had never expected it. Sure, he was known to dabble: he had a wife, a boyfriend, and occasionally was seen with a pretty face whose name he had forgotten the moment it was said. But falling for the best man on his son’s wedding day? It was a whole different ballgame.

Jove had first noticed the boy during the ceremony. “Boy” was perhaps a little of an overstatement; he didn’t look much older than Jason, but even that was at least thirty years Jove’s junior. He had walked the maid of honor down the isle in a tux that fit him remarkably well and whose black color made his copper skin glow in the church like some modern apostle.

When the boy had turned at the alter to await Jason who, in turn, walked his mother down the isle, Jove had to blink several times. Not only was he beautiful, with loose black curls that hung just so over the slope of his dark eyebrows, but his eyes were so intense it made his heart trip over itself.

Jove didn’t know the boy’s name or even if he was interested in men, but he knew the second the boy smiled and bumped Jason’s shoulder when he took his place at the altar that he was going to find out.

One way or another.

**

It wasn’t until the reception that Jove got the chance.

Jason and Piper had had their first dance and the younger guests were now on the dance floor jumping and moving their hips about to the DJ’s terrible taste in music. The room was lit only by flashing lights and the base from the stereo was sending vibrations up through the floor and into Jove’s thighs.

Jove spotted the boy by the bar, having obviously been dancing himself: his suit jacket had been lost, his tie loosened, and the sleeves of his button-down shirt had been rolled to his elbows. As Jove took a seat beside him his dick jumped at the familiar musk of sweat and spiced cologne.

“Enjoying yourself?” he asked over the music.

The boy turned to him and Jove immediately felt electrified. His eyes were the shade of green that swimmers saw the moment before they drowned. And then the boy smiled and the storm was calmed; Jove would live to see another day. “Yeah. You?”

Jove held his eyes for a moment before offering him one his own classic smiles. “I am now.”

The boy seemed confused by the comment and then, after realizing it was a come on, let out a very pleasing laugh. He turned his body so he was no longer leaning with his back to the bar, but was leaning closer to Jove. “Is that so?” he asked.

Now that he was close Jove saw that his forearms were covered in tattoos: sea animals and ocean waves in the classic American style that Jove’s own father would have decorating his biceps. Jove wanted to trace them with the pads of his fingers, to follow the lines of black ink with his tongue, to make sweat bead on the head of a whale and drip over the mast of a ship.

“Any chance someone like you has a name?” Jove asked.

“Someone like me?” repeated the boy.

Jove licked his lips and decided to try his luck. “A demigod.”

His answer made the boy laugh. Laugh and laugh and laugh. But when he stopped laughing he was leaning even closer to Jove and so he considered it a win.

“Perseus,” the boy said.

“What?”

“My name,” the boy said again. His eyes were dancing with mirth.

Ah. So that was why he had found Jove’s compliment so funny.

“But you can call me Percy.”

“Jove.”

“I know,” Percy said and then grinned. “You’re Jason’s dad.”

Something twisted in the low of Jove’s stomach. Suddenly he felt very aware of the gray in his beard and in his hair, of the crow’s feet on the side of his eyes, of the three pounds he’d recently gained without any idea of where they’d come from. “Does that bother you?” he asked.

“Are you kidding?” Percy leaned in incredibly close. Jove could feel his breath on his cheek. “I’ve had a crush on you since I was  _seventeen_.”

Jove did not often blush. This seemed like a very opportune time to do so. “What?”

“I saw you at Jason’s graduation five years ago,” Percy explained. “I stopped by to get a photo with him while you were talking to somebody.” His eyes were positively wicked. “Do you know how many times I thought of you that week?”

Jove’s mouth was very dry.

Percy licked his lips and then lowered his eyes before bringing them back up to Jove’s face. He suddenly seemed far more bashful than he had a moment ago. And then he said, “I still do.”

Jesus.

“You wanna dance?” Percy asked.

The music had taken a turn for the soft and Jove knew that if he accepted Percy’s request it would mean something far more than he had expected it to.

But then Percy was leading him to the dance floor, a puck dancing away with a human man, and Jove’s hands were on his hips and Percy’s hands were behind his neck and the song was too soft, too sweet, but so were Percy’s lips. They were strangers buzzed on champagne and the happy-go-lucky atmosphere of a wedding and Jove knew that in the morning Percy would probably regret his decision.

But then Percy looked up at him with his hurricane eyes and Jove knew there would be no regret.

And there wasn’t.

Not when Percy was under him with Jove’s shoulder in his mouth and his eyes screwed shut, not when Percy called him that following weekend to ask him on a date, not when Jove had memorized Percy’s coffee order and brought it to him the morning of Percy’s first big job, and not when Percy woke up tucked against his side in Jove’s bed five months later.

The sun had begun to creep along the windows, the white curtains unable to keep out its voyeuristic stare. The brown of Percy’s smooth body was a stark contrast to the white linen and the trident that cut across his back made him look like a god emerging from sea foam.

“Hey,” Percy whispered, his eyes still half-lidded with sleep.

“Hey, yourself,” Jove said and reached up to brush his thumb across the skin of Percy’s cheek.

Percy smiled even as he shut his eyes again. “What’s got you in a dopey mood?”

“I’m not in a dopey mood.”

“Yes, y'are,” Percy said. “You always touch my face when you’re feeling lovey-dovey.”

“It’s our anniversary.”

Jove smiled as Percy peaked an eye out at him. “Gross.”

Jove smiled wider and brought one of Percy’s hands up to his mouth and kissed his palm.

“Gay,” said Percy. Although he was smiling too now and buried his face partially into his own arm.

“I want to give you something,” Jove said.

“Yeah?”

Jove rolled over to reach for the bedside table.

Percy groaned. “Not now, I’m still sore.”

Jove laughed. “Not  _that_.” He rolled back over and scooted down amongst the covers. “Give me your hand.”

Percy’s smile vanished a bit. “Jove.”

“Don’t worry, it’s not what you think.”

Percy offered his left hand where a giant squid tangled around his knuckles. Jove kissed each one before sliding a ring onto his third finger. “It definitely looks like what I think.”

Jove kissed the silver band before letting go. “Read it.”

“If this is your mother’s Holocaust ring, I swear to god I’m breaking up with you.”

Jove snorted. “I’m not that old.”

Percy brought his hand closer to his face and turned the band around his finger so he could read the inscription. And his face promptly went from skeptical to slack-jawed and doe-eyed. “ _Jove_.”

Jove kissed the top of his head.

“I didn’t even get you anything.”

“You did last night.”

Percy snorted. He looked at the band and flexed his fingers. “Is this a promise ring?”

“You said promise rings were stupid,” said Jove. “So it isn’t. Consider it, instead, as a token.”

“Of your  _love_?” Percy asked, grinning up at him. “How corny can you get?”

“Very,” Jove said, pressing close to wrap his arms around him. “When it’s true.”

Percy buried himself into the warm of Jove’s chest; he could feel him smiling against his skin.

_There are storms and there are fires and then there is you._


End file.
